Well that’s what happened to me last weekend. Once a year my wife and I join the Bike the Coast event in Oceanside. A safe easy route that takes us inland along a quiet bike path that has no cars. It’s perfect for kids, families, and beginners. What could go wrong?

Crash! That’s what.

Nothing serious as my bike wasn’t even damaged. As a matter of fact, I didn’t even fall off my bike. So things were more or less okay, or so I thought.

How did it happen you ask?

Well… I was ‘forced’ into a location were I would lose my balance or go flying over a pile of huge mean sharp-looking rocks. To regain balance, I had to slam on the breaks and dismount from the pedals. Unfortunately, my right leg (and foot) ended up being an extra brake as the pedal slammed up to my achilles tendon. This resulted in a large amount of tread coming off the toe of my running shoe as the pedal embedded itself into my skin.

There was some swelling as expected, so I followed the RICE guidelines when I could. Basically that means no running until the swelling goes down. When I was younger, recovery would be 3-4 days. But here I am, over a week later, and there are times when the swelling actually increases. Not good. Plus when I put on running shoes hoping to get a little circulation going, the side cuts deeply into the ankle’s swollen tissue… so even walking is out.

This is now putting me in a precarious situation as I will be traveling to New Zealand next month to do the Tongariro Passage – a 22km hike with a 500m evaluation gain over the ‘lands of mordor’.

Hopefully there will be some quick recovery in the next few weeks as I would still like to do a few treks and runs before then.